REVIEW: American Honey (2016, Dir. Andrea Arnold)

In 1996, British band, blur, having satirised the English class system into submission, turned their attention to the grungy alt-rock guitars of America. The self-titled album that resulted broke them there. Their sound evolved and in the sonic distance between reality and perception a new America was born.

There's something about the foreigner's gaze that strips a culture bare; like fresh eyes over familiar words, given new meaning. The good and the bad are in more immediate focus. There are fewer explain-aways. Fewer this-is-how-it’s-always-beens. You get something fantastical. Cultural pastiche, but pastiche that is somehow more incisive.

For some reason it is blur that popped into my head early in Andrea Arnold’s American Honey. Perhaps their line “look inside America, she’s alright, she’s alright” was still too wedged in my brain, perhaps  Robbie Ryan’s gold-washed tones recalled the purr of Graham Coxon’s guitars. Perhaps it was just that Arnold brought to America that same loose cultural criticism, inflected with the same optimistic wonderment.

American Honey bounces tirelessly off the familiarity of pop culture, acid washed hung out since the ‘90s, busting on Mountain Dew and hi-NRG hip-hop hybrids. Its New World twist on Dickensian dystopia is bright, menace-free and optimistic about the reciprocal benefits of economic exploitation. From the moment young rope-in mother Star (Sasha Lane) divests herself of her partner’s kids and takes up with Jake (Shia Labeouf) and his band of subscription dealing societal offcuts, opportunity is knocking. And knocking to a tune you can get motivated to. Even America’s Fagins are seductive (and Riley Keough oils up well).

If you’d prefer a local reference point, the fluoro atmospherics of Harmony Korine’s Spring Breakers is an ephemeral comparison. Just transport from Florida to the mid-West. The road trip, the capitalist hangover, the scene swallowing music feature prominently in both. Both carry their disillusionment with similar clit-bursting bravado. Both refuse to bow to the system. Both want to break it from within.

Arnold is less optimistic though. She latches into the monotony of the capitalist grind and Lane, who is excellent throughout, glimpses the bigger machine even if she doesn’t understand its bone-wearing persistence. American Honey sings the same tune to the point of exhaustion. The energy doesn’t drain but the exuberance takes its toll on the mind and the soul. Compromised love gives some salve (and Laboeuf is a surprisingly effective romantic foil) and the sky remains hyper-blue. But as the songs hit repeat and happiness becomes real effort. We become prisoners of sugar and dance breaks.

But it is still seductive. It is still America. It is still sticky and golden. It still holds the rest of the world transfixed.

How can we get there?

★★★★

Trailer: